There was no protection; there was only a curse.
But here’s the thing about being a monster—you can either let it destroy you, or you can learn to use it. MI6 first found me when I was twenty, and they saw what I could be. A perfectweapon. A honeytrap who never had to worry about things getting complicated, because the moment it got physical, the target was already dead.
From my start at MI6 to my role at SOE, I’ve used my curse to serve my country for almost a decade. I’ve seduced arms dealers and corrupt politicians and men who thought they were untouchable. I’ve kissed them and watched the light leave their eyes and told myself it was justice, or at least necessity.
And I’d gotten good at it. Too good, maybe. Good enough to stop thinking of them as people and start thinking of them as targets, which is what every agent aspires for.
Until Dmitri Olkov.
He wasn’t supposed to be different. Mid-fifties, paunchy, with a comb-over and a laugh that sounded like a seal barking. He should have been easy. Another name on the list, another body that looked like natural causes.
But Dmitri had a daughter. Eighteen years old, studying medicine in St. Petersburg, and he talked about her constantly, showed me pictures on his phone while we drank champagne in his hotel room.She wants to be a surgeon, he said, his eyes soft in a way I hadn’t expected.Can you imagine? My little girl, saving lives.
I should have kissed him then, while he was distracted, while his guard was down. That’s what a good operative would have done.
Instead, I hesitated.
And in that hesitation, everything went to shit.
Dmitri noticed something was wrong. Maybe my expression changed, maybe I tensed up—I still don’t know what gave me away. But suddenly, he wasn’t a mark anymore; he was FSB, trained to spot threats, and he was looking at me like he finally saw me clearly.
The next few minutes are still a blur. He went for his gun. I went for the door. There was a fight in the hallway, then the stairwell, then the street. By the time I made it to the extraction point, I had two cracked ribs, a concussion, and a trail of witnesses who could place me fleeing a hotel where an FSB officer was screaming about an assassination attempt.
The Russians couldn’t prove it was us. With my blonde wig shed, my appearance altered, the trail went cold. But they knew. Mank had to burn assets we’d spent years cultivating just to get me out of the country without starting an international incident.
Dmitri Olkov is still alive, still has a daughter studying medicine in St. Petersburg, and I’m still asking myself why I couldn’t just kiss him and be done with it.
The answer, I think, is that I’m broken. Something in me has cracked, some wire crossed wrong, and I don’t know how to fix it. I’ve spent fifteen years turning my curse into a weapon, and now, the weapon is misfiring.
Mank never asked for details. He just looked at me with those sharp eyes, handed me a box of files, and said, “Take some time. Get your head right.”
Three months of filing later, and I’m still not sure my head is right. But when the Vanguard mission came across Mank’s desk—a surveillance op requiring a journalist cover, one I’d spent years perfecting on the side, no honeytrap required, just observation and assessment—I’d practically begged for it. A chance to prove I was still worth something. A chance to use my brain instead of my body, even though I’ll have to use the latter if the time ever calls for it.
And now, here I am, walking through the warehouse door with my phone burning a hole in my pocket, checking every thirty seconds for an email that hasn’t come.
The lift groans its way up to the top floor, lurching a couple of times ominously before it deposits me into the controlled chaos of SOE.
Someone’s left a half-eaten croissant on the radiator again—probably Cal, the heathen—and the smell of burnt toast confirms Bayo is already at his station, failing spectacularly at breakfast, as usual. The radiators are clanging their morning protest, and through the grimy windows, the Thames is a grey ribbon under an even greyer sky.
Home sweet home.
“Morning, love!” Tabby calls out from behind her desk, which is less a desk and more a fortified position made of teacups, biscuit tins, candles, and stacks of files that would give a health and safety inspector heart palpitations.
Tabitha French is our office manager, though that title doesn’t begin to cover what she actually does. She’s mid-seventies, with steel-grey curls and an ever-present yellow cardigan that could qualify for its own postcode, with round, ruddy cheeks and warm brown eyes, the kind of face that belongs on a tin of biscuits. She calls everyone ‘love’ and ‘dear’ and dispenses tissues and Hobnobs like a nan who wandered in from a different, gentler world.
Which is exactly what she wants you to think.
No one talks about it openly, but Tabby was MI6 from 1972 to 2003. She ran honey traps in East Berlin when the Wall still stood—probably invented half the techniques I use today (sans lethal kiss, of course). There’s a rumor that in the ’80s, she killed a KGB handler with a hairpin in Vienna. She neither confirms nor denies, just smiles and offers you another cuppa.
These days, she makes tea, remembers everyone’s birthday, and occasionally drops a piece of tradecraft so casually devastating, even Mank shuts up and takes note.
“Morning, Tabby,” I say, accepting the cup of oat milk Earl Grey she’s already poured. She always knows when I need it. “Any word from?—”
“Nothing yet, love. But the kettle’s just boiled, and worrying won’t make emails arrive faster.” She pats my arm with a hand that’s surprisingly strong. “Roger said you did good work on that proposal. Whatever happens, happens.”
Easy for her to say. She’s not the one whose career is dangling by a thread.
“Well, well.” A voice cuts across the room. “Look who’s decided to grace us with her presence. The belle of the ball. Or should I say, gala?”
